Page 63 of Anatomy of a Killer
‘What’s going on?’ Nathalie asks, pointing her torch at it.
I pick the phone up, say, ‘Everything’s okay, Jakob,’ then end the call. ‘You must think it’s weird that I should be creeping around your house at this hour. But I was worried about you.’ I look past her at the terrace door, which is open. She could invite me in, where there’s light and somewhere to sit. Instead she switches off the torch, clamps it under her arm and bends down for the axe. I instinctively take a step backwards.
‘The frozen ground,’ she says, nodding at the cat’s grave. ‘And stubborn tree roots too. You were lucky I recognised you in time.’
‘I rang the bell,’ I say in my defence. ‘Besides, you could have put a light on.’
Leaning the axe against the wall of the house, she pulls the belt on her dressing gown tighter, the torch still clamped under her arm. The cold seems to be getting to her after all. ‘No, I couldn’t, I’m afraid. Something’s up with the electrics. Nothing’s been working since this afternoon, no light, no cooker, nothing. I need to let Brock know, though I don’t suppose I’m high on his list of priorities at the moment. Come in.’
I follow her through the terrace door into the sitting room. It’s bitterly cold, even in here, and it smells a bit musty, like my bathroom at the inn. Maybe there’s mould on the walls. To the left, beneath the shuttered windows, I can see the outline of a sofa with a coffee table in front of it and an old-fashioned standard lamp beside it. To the right, some narrow stairs lead up.
‘I was going to wait with the grave till tomorrow morning because of the light,’ Nathalie says, moving to the table and placing the torch on it. Once again the click of a lighter. This time she lights the candles on the table– half a dozen stumps, burned to different heights, on the bare wood with nothing beneath them. ‘But Lenia was crying so much and wouldn’t calm down. She got to the point where she almost collapsed with exhaustion.’ She bends down, takes off her woolly socks, rolls them up together and thoughtlessly drops them on the floor. At the sight of her bare feet on the cold tiles, I wrap my arms around my chest. The two sweatshirts I’m wearing, one on top of the other, are no substitute for Dad’s jacket.
‘You get used to some things,’ Nathalie says, as if she could read my mind. ‘But not others.’
I just nod, still overwhelmed by the situation. Not to mention the cold, the musty smell and the flickering shadows cast by the candlelight.
‘Do sit down. Would you like some tea? My mother and the little one are both asleep so we should try to keep the noise down.’
I shake my head. I mustn’t forget why I’ve actually come here. ‘Does the name Marcus Steinhausen mean anything to you?’
A brief silence, shadows dancing on her face. ‘No, who’s he?’
‘Are you sure?’
No answer, just the dancing shadows.
‘How do you know the weekly market in Nestorstrasse if you lived in Wuppertal before moving to Schergel?’
‘The. . . ? Oh yes, that. I’ve got friends in Berlin. They took me there once when I was on a visit. Is that why you’ve come all the way up here? To interrogate me? What’s this about?’
She’s about to turn away but I grab the sleeve of her dressing gown. ‘You’re afraid, Nathalie. I can sense it. You know who I am. Now tell me who you are!’
‘Please, not so loud.’
‘I can help you!’
Jerking out of my grip, she looks over at the stairs. ‘You’ll wake the entire house up.’ A diversionary tactic I’m not going to fall for.
‘Wiesbaden,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Schmitti told me you come from Wuppertal. Whereas this afternoon you told me yourself you come from Wiesbaden.’
She shakes her head. ‘Wuppertal! I said Wuppertal. You must have misheard. And now I’d like to know what this is all about.’
‘I’m just trying to make sense of our conversation earlier. Make sense ofyou. As well as the whole situation here in Schergel. Sarah’s disappearance and Kerstin’s murder. You talked of eleven girls the ribbon murderer abducted in Berlin. How did you get that number?’
Nathalie thumps her chest as if trying to calm her heartbeat. But she doesn’t answer me, she says nothing.
‘Please, Nathalie.’ My eyes well with tears. ‘Does this violent ex-husband of yours really exist? Or is it what I’m thinking? Was your little daughter one of the victims too? Only that, like Sarah, she managed to escape her kidnapper?’
‘My ex-husband. . .’ she repeats, her voice cracking.
‘Did he really hurt you? Or Lenia? Or are we actually talking about someone quite different?’
Nathalie sways; I grab her arm again, to support her this time.
